It may
seem obvious to many people why literacy is so important in our technologically
advanced society. However, many parents may not fully realize the emotional
pain and life-long damage illiteracy can cause their children. Literacy,
the ability to read well, is the foundation of children’s education.
If children can’t read well, every subject they try to learn will frustrate
them. If they can’t read math, history, or science textbooks, if they
stumble over the words, they will soon give up reading out of frustration.
Asking children who are poor readers to study these subjects is like asking
them to climb a rope with one arm.

Kids
learn to read in their most formative years, which is why reading can
profoundly affect their self-esteem. When children learn to read, they
also start learning how to think abstractly, because words convey ideas
and relationships between ideas. How well they read therefore affects
your children’s feelings about their ability to learn. This in turn affects
how your kids feel about themselves generally — whether they think they
are smart or stupid. Children who struggle with reading often blame themselves
and feel ashamed of themselves.

As Donald
L. Nathanson, M.D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior
at Jefferson Medical College noted: “First reading itself, and then the
whole education process, becomes so imbued with, stuffed with, amplified,
magnified by shame that children can develop an aversion to everything
that is education.”

Often,
poor readers will struggle just to graduate from high school. They can
lose general confidence in themselves, and therefore the confidence to
try for college or pursue a career. Their job opportunities can dry up.
Their poor reading skills and low self-confidence can strangle their ability
to earn money. They can struggle financially their whole lives. If they
marry and have children, they can struggle even more.

Life
for illiterate adults can easily degenerate into misery, poverty, failure,
and hopelessness. According to a 1992 study by the National Institute
for Literacy, “43 % of Americans with the lowest literacy skills live
in poverty and 70 % have no job or a part-time job. Only 5% of Americans
with strong literacy skills live in poverty.”

As Dr.
Grover Whitehurst, former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of
Education, said, “Reading is absolutely fundamental. It’s almost trite
to say that. But in our society, the inability to be fluent consigns children
to failure in school and consigns adults to the lowest strata of job and
life opportunities.”

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Illiteracy
also perpetuates social injustice. It keeps many low-income black, hispanic,
and other inner-city minorities in poverty. It perpetuates the cycle of
failure in minority communities. It pushes many minority children into
drugs and crime, because too often they don’t see any other way out of
their poverty. As David Boulton, organizational learning theorist and
co-producer of the Children of the Code PBS Television Documentary Series,
noted:

“Even
if you cut the numbers in half, statistically, more children are at risk
of suffering long-term life harm from the consequences of not learning
to read well than from parental abuse, accidents, and all known childhood
diseases and disorders combined. Even if you cut the numbers in half,
the national cost of reading-related difficulties is greater than the
cost of the wars on crime, drugs, and terror combined.”

That
is what illiteracy can mean, what it does mean for millions of public-school
children who can barely read. Does any parent want this kind of future
for his or her children? Do you want this kind of future for your
child?

Well,
consider the following about public schools and illiteracy.

In most
public schools today, the schools still use variations of a reading-instruction
method called “whole-language.” The schools often disguise this fact by
calling their teaching methods “balanced-literacy” instruction or some
other name they dream up to throw smoke into parent’s eyes. Whole-language,
or any variation of it, is reading-instruction poison. It can and does
literally cripple your child’s ability to read. It is an anti-phonics
program that forces children to “read” by memorizing what words “look”
like, as if the words were pictures, rather than by sounding out the letters
of words with phonics.

The
disastrous whole-language “reading” instruction method continues to cripple
millions of public-school children’s ability to read, and therefore cripples
their future. It could be crippling your child’s ability to read,
right now.

Parents,
have you investigated how your local public school teaches your child
to read? Do you see any real progress with your child’s reading and writing
skills, after years of mind-numbing public-school classes? Do your children’s
writing assignments get glowing “A” and “B” marks from their public-school
teachers, but your children’s writing looks like chicken scrawl, and their
reading skills are pathetic?

If so,
I ask you this question again: Have you investigated how your local public
school teaches your child to read? Have you demanded to sit in on your
child’s classes while the teacher gives “reading” instruction to her class?
Don’t you think that would be a good idea?

Finally,
you love your children and want the best for them. Do you want their lives
crippled by illiteracy, aided and abetted by your local public school?

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The
best solution? Consider taking your child out of public school, permanently,
before it is too late. There are great new and low-cost education
alternatives you can take advantage of, right now. These include low-cost
internet private schools, easy homeschooling curriculum, parent-group
neighborhood schools, and the unbelievable K-12 education resources on
the internet and computer software. Isn’t your child’s future worth looking
into these alternatives?

Mr. Turtel has
written two books, published over fifty articles, and has been interviewed
in both print and broadcast media on the subject. His latest book, Public
Schools, Public Menace has garnered national media attention – recently,
for example, Dr. Laura Schlessinger featured the book on her nationally
syndicated radio show.

Joel Turtel is
available to discuss his book Public Schools, Public Menace in the media,
at conferences, or with individual groups. Be warned though, you may be
shocked by the revelations he has uncovered in America's public-school
system.

Kids
learn to read in their most formative years, which is why reading can
profoundly affect their self-esteem. When children learn to read, they
also start learning how to think abstractly, because words convey ideas
and relationships between ideas.